


Open Letters to People and Entities Who Are Unlikely to Respond

by Penknife



Category: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Casual Sex, Multi, Post-Solo: A Star Wars Story, These Are Probably Not the Conventional Stages of Grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 06:16:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17934398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penknife/pseuds/Penknife
Summary: It's a grieving process, of some kind.





	Open Letters to People and Entities Who Are Unlikely to Respond

Lando leaves Han and Chewbacca on Savareen without a single regret. They can hitch a ride with Dryden Vos, or wait for another ship to come along, or drown themselves, as far as he cares. This job has gone about as bad as it is possible for a job to go, and he is done, and he is leaving.

He's not doing the Kessel Run again, not with the Falcon falling apart around him, and in the Centrality they played too many games that might mean he's still wanted by the authorities, and so he washes up on Boonta. It's the kind of flat desert planet where racing sports are the only local attraction, but there's a tiny shipyard, where the repairs may not be good, but they will be fast and cheap.  

But first he's got a mess to clean up. He's standing in the lounge, and there's what's left of L3, and it is probably, technically, junk, but these were her arms, he's touched this metal, it's familiar in his hands, this was _her_ , and how does anybody do this? He's been in fights where people died, he's even killed people, but he's always been able to walk away.

He doesn't want to do this. He wants to protest that he can't do this, but there's no one here to listen. His throat is knotted, and he's not sure what's wrong with him, because this ought to be a misadventure, not a tragedy. It's losing a piece of equipment that made his life easier, it's a bad day he's going to forget--

He's lying to himself, and he knows it. He isn't ever going to forget this. He's felt all kinds of pain before, but he's not sure he's ever been _hurt_ like this. It's the first time he's felt something break inside him that he doesn’t know how to fix.

But he still has to do this. It'll be worse once the repair techs are on board, so he gets a box to put what's left of her in, and then tries to figure out what she would have wanted him to do with her.

Some of the parts are still serviceable, but he's pretty sure she wouldn't want that, to have pieces of her sold off to organic masters to keep their servile droids in good repair. Burial would only postpone the inevitable, in a hardscrabble spaceport town where scavengers are relentless. It'll have to be fire.

He finds the nearest scrap metal dealer and insists on watching while she's reduced to slag, because he doesn't trust the man's promises.

"I'd take her off your hands as is," the man says. "My loss if I can't get her running again."

Repair is not an option. He has her stored data, but even if her hardware weren't fried, her programming, everything she wasn't supposed to be that she programmed herself to be anyway, every bit of random drift that made her who she was to start with -- that's gone. 

"Melt her down, or I'll find someone who will," Lando says.

"Your loss, then," the man says, and feeds what's left of L3 into the fire.

He takes his payment for the value of the metal, and walks outside.  He feels lighter, like the hot wind is scouring away some of the darkness in his head. He pours the credit chips into the hands of the first beggar he sees, maybe just because it feels wrong to spend them, or maybe as an offering to Lady Luck. Lando doesn't quite believe in gods, but he doesn't quite _not_ believe in them, either, and right now he'd really like to believe there's someone out there who hears him.

*****

They're still working on his ship when he gets back to the shipyard, and normally he would either go find a game or go looking for company, but he doesn't actually feel like either one right now.  He'll probably be in the mood to do those things by the time he gets wherever he's going next, but right now he sits in a spaceport bar and drinks until he decides it isn't making him feel any better and goes outside to walk it off. The desert sky is big and far away.

His other impulse right now is something he's resisting, because it isn't how gentlemen of fortune handle their problems. He will arrive wherever he's going next a gentleman of fortune, recently having suffered reverses, but in full confidence that luck will smile on him at the earliest opportunity.

He walks for a while longer, and decides that maybe he can be that person and still call home.

He finds a shop that has a holobooth, and the proprietor offers to connect him for rates that are highway robbery even given that she'll have to patch the call through a hell of relays. He pays, hoping that he hasn't been too optimistic about the cost of the repairs to his ship.

It's clearly nighttime on Socorro. His mother is wearing a dark robe over her brocade pajamas, her hair wrapped for sleep, but her eyes light up when she sees him as if he hasn't just gotten her out of bed at some ridiculous hour. "Lando. It has been a while," she points out.

"I'm sorry, Mama." He's been occupied by being a gentleman of fortune, and before that, running guns for Crimson Dawn, and before that, doing a number of things that make excellent stories, but not ones suitable for his mother. "You know how it is. Things to do, people to see."

"Oh, I do know how it is," she says, by which she means that she thinks he's been getting himself into trouble. "Are you calling because you need money?"

"I do not need money." That may or may not be true, but that's a problem he can handle on his own. There's enough betting money here that if he needs to get into a game to scrape up the cost of additional repairs, he should have his choice.

"That's good to hear. You know I worry."

"I know you do, but you shouldn't." He is getting good at walking away from things that happen to other people. "I'm still in one piece."

"You know you can come home any time, don't you?"

"I know that, too," he says, and decides this might have been a bad idea. "I have to go, you wouldn't believe what they're charging me for this call."

"Where are you?" she asks, like she truly is worried about him, and he cuts the call to avoid any temptation to tell her.

*****

Numidia Prime is everything that Boonta isn't, a lush jungle world where brilliant birds arrow over Lando's head as he goes looking for a stiff drink, a game of chance, and congenial company.

He finds those things in more or less that order, flirting with everyone remotely interesting over the cards until he settles on a swarthy pilot who's better at masculine swagger than he is at knowing when to fold.

"Let's go play a different game," Lando says, draping his arm around the man's shoulders as if offering friendly advice, his mouth hot against the man's ear. "I can promise you that you'll have more luck."

It seems like a lot of trouble to go back to the _Falcon_ , so they find a secluded corner that's private enough. Lando is aware that he's still not in an ideal frame of mind, so he makes up for it by making it good, dropping down to his knees with his hands curled around the pilot's thighs and making himself at home there.  This is something that he's good at making good, and by the time he's finished, he thinks he's blown the man's mind to a satisfactory extent.

"Do you want …?" the man asks, gesturing as if he thinks he ought to reciprocate.

"Next time," he says, straightening the man's jacket and patting him on the back a little too firmly.

He walks outside to clear his head, where a glorious moon is rising over a jungle heavy with the scent of exotic blooms. "You would hate this place," he says conversationally. "You would be complaining about what the humidity was doing to your circuits, and complaining about me."

There's no answer, of course, and he goes looking for a stronger drink to drown the silence. When one doesn't work, he follows it with more, and in the morning he wakes up with his head throbbing and most of his remaining stake gone. He knows better than to play cards when he's drunk. It is actually possible that he will have to look for some kind of gainful employment.

He finds a Rodian who wants a cargo of banned holovids transported on a short enough run that Lando can handle it without looking for a new copilot. That's just fine as far as he's concerned. He isn't really in the mood to make new friends right now.

*****

He's bored the entire time that he's in hyperspace. Lando has gotten used to always having someone around to talk to, as well as to someone talking to him even when he might have preferred peace and quiet. He is used to arguments and frustration and teasing, used to sitting in the lounge with his feet up explaining to L3 why she is one hundred percent wrong.

Talking to the _Falcon_ isn't the same. He wants it to be, but it isn't. He turns on the recording he was working on while he waited around on Kessel and tries to remember the rest of the story he meant to tell, but he can't pick up the thread. He's beginning to think that recording his memoirs was never really that amusing a conceit, anyway.

He offloads the holovids on Abhean and heads out to the local nightclubs looking for company. He finds an attractive local with iridescent hair who thinks that spacers are exciting, which is an uncomplicated enough motivation to suit him at the moment. They have a few drinks, and then he brings her back to the _Falcon_ , his arm around her waist, her shimmering hair spilling in a halo down her bare shoulders.

It's all good until they're actually in his bunk, her shapely breasts warm in his hands through the thin gauze of her dress and her hands working at the fastenings of his trousers. Then he starts to get the uncomfortable feeling that it isn't right for him to do this here, where the _Falcon_ can't help watching.

He is aware that he is being unreasonable about this. L3 never minded his lovers, or at least never minded more than enough to criticize his taste. She wasn't his lover herself, discounting a few mutually confusing and fascinating experiments. There's nothing here he should feel guilty about.

They do what they came there to do, and with his face buried between his companion's thighs he tells himself he's entirely content. He thinks she'd be happy to spend the night, and usually he'd be happy for a repeat performance before a leisurely breakfast. There's no one around to complain that he's making them wait while he indulges organic appetites.

"Baby, I'm going to have to say good night," he says, ignoring her frown. "Let me walk you out."

When he gets back from showing her the exit hatch, the ship feels too empty again, apparently never the right degree of haunted for his comfort.

"You are a lot of trouble," he complains on his way to bed alone.

He feels that if the _Falcon_ could tell him he's being unreasonable, she would. He's just going to be this way, apparently, and she's going to have to live with it.

It's not like either of them has another choice. Lando would never sell this ship. This ship is perfect, and he'll never find another one like her.  And now he's responsible for this ship, because he couldn't ever let her go to someone who wouldn't treat her right.

But he wouldn't ever want to. He's more or less retired from the smuggling game, anyway. He'll build a stake up again and get into some profitable games and make a living as a sportsman. And when he needs transportation, he'll have the _Falcon_ waiting for him to run him about like a pleasure yacht.

He knows that's not really what she was made for, but they're both getting by right now the best way that they can.

*****

When Han Solo reappears, unrepentant and ready for a rematch, Lando certainly intends to win. He puts the _Falcon_ on the table because it's the best way to entice Han to put his money down. He's already planning to cheat, and even if Han's seen his tricks before, he fell for them once, and he'll fall for them again.

Apparently, Han is a better pickpocket than he is a gambler. It's possible that Lando should have thought harder about just what they teach on the streets of Corellia, but he's too angry to admit that at the moment. Chewbacca looks a little sympathetic when Han makes it clear he intends to immediately collect his winnings, which makes Lando even angrier.

"My personal possessions were not included in the bargain," he says from between gritted teeth.

"Sure, take what you want," Han says. "If you've got someplace to put it."

He doesn't, of course, and it's not possible to unload a freighter into travel cases. He manages to retrieve most of his clothes, several of the bottles from the bar, and an assortment of small personal items he's attached to.

When he hauls his cases through the lounge on his way out, Han actually looks a little rueful. "If we're leaving you flat, we could pay you for some of the stuff you're not taking."

"I'm not speaking to you," Lando says.

"Come on, no hard feelings," Han says, and Lando shakes his head, because he can't quite believe Han. The man is charming, which is probably the only reason no one has killed him yet.

"I'm not punching you in the face right now."

"So that's a start," Han says.

"If you don't take care of her the way she deserves, I will personally hunt you down and ruin your life," Lando says.

Han looks more serious. "Believe me, I'm going to take care of her. I have loved this ship since the moment I saw her, and I am not going to let anyone lay a finger on her. There's not another one out there like her."

"No, there is not," Lando says, and at least they agree on that. He rests a hand on the bulkhead for a moment. "You take care of yourself," he says, and he's not talking to Han.

It hurts, watching the _Falcon_ lift off, but it's a wound that he feels some confidence that he'll survive.

*****

It takes a while to find the right opportunity for a ride off Numidia Prime. He settles on a Twi'lek freighter captain based on Nar Shaddaa who's just had an unpleasant falling-out with his co-pilot over finances.

"I could use transport to a location where more serious games of chance are played, and I'm willing to make myself useful on the way," Lando says. "I'm a good pilot and a good shot, and I'm reliably entertaining company."

"If you mean you'll throw in sex, I don't pay for that," Tal says, his pale blue lekku twitching at the tips in what might be either amusement or offense.

"I don't sell it. But I might grow on you."

One lek curls speculatively. "How good a pilot?"

"We'll get along fine," Lando says, and picks up his travel cases to bring them on board.

They're in bed together before they get to Nar Shaddaa. Tal likes to be in charge during sex, and while Lando usually prefers to run the show, even if it's from the bottom, there's a satisfaction right now in letting someone else hold him down and do things to him that keep him entirely present in the moment.

Impaled on Tal's cock with his wrists pinned to the mattress, it is not possible to brood over his troubles. All he can do is thrust against the sheets and swear and promise increasingly obscene favors in return, and eventually collapse in a sweaty and satisfied heap.

"What happened to you?" Tal asks eventually, one warm lek draped down Lando's thigh in what Lando interprets as an affectionate gesture. The bunk isn't really big enough to share, but they're managing.

"Some minor reversals of fortune," he says, trying to sound like a gentleman of fortune should. "I'm regrouping."

"I've just seen people look better," Tal says after a while longer.

Lando closes his eyes and resorts to honesty. "My friend died.  I miss her."

"Bad luck," Tal says sympathetically.

Lando nods. "It's improving." He finds himself liking Tal, which suggests that his ability to have feelings of any kind about people may not have been permanently mangled. They could have a good time on the way to where they're going. He finds himself extremely grateful for that, right now.

"You know, they say that the people we lose are still there, in the Force," Tal says after it's quiet for another long while. "That they can still hear us if we have things we want to say."

This isn't the first time Lando's heard that sentiment expressed, in various ways. He's not sure whether he believes he has a soul, and he's certainly not sure he believes that machines have souls, except in the sense that L3's is currently trying to keep Han Solo from totaling the _Falcon_ in the apparent continual series of narrow escapes that is the man's life.

"I don't actually think that's true," he says.

"You talk to her anyway, though," Tal says, like he's sure about that.

"There are times when you talk too much," Lando says, and sets about finding a creative way to encourage silence.

*****

Nar Shaddaa is full of opportunities, a smuggler's lair filled with high-stakes games and under-the-table deals and chances to risk your life to make a fortune. Lando is dressed to kill and ready to go looking for trouble, his cape thrown over one shoulder, his blaster at his hip.

And for the first time, there's a part of him that says he should be careful. He's taken risks all his life, but he's never really believed he could lose before.

_It's time to get back in the game_ , he tells himself, but it's possible that being just a little more careful wouldn't actually fatally cramp his style. He could think things through a little more, sometimes. And having thought them through, he'll probably get himself into all kinds of trouble anyway. He has always been terrible at listening to his own advice.

Lando straightens his collar and prepares to find that trouble, or possibly to find someone new and interesting to get into trouble with. There's still that new and irritating part of him that says that it could all end badly, but he's going to have to live with that. Maybe it'll teach him to make better bets. He's willing to admit there are one or two things he might still have to learn.

And maybe Lady Luck will bring him something interesting tonight, he thinks, and steps out to meet whatever comes his way.


End file.
